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Read On! Cultural Conversations

January 10, 2022

Recently, I got to celebrate my 42nd birthday. I’ve been looking forward to this birthday for a while because I’m a big fan of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. The audiobook, read by Stephen Fry,  is one of the few physical audiobooks I own. The movie adaptation keeps the spirit of the book in the forefront and has an amazing cast. My nerdy birthday party got me thinking about how if someone hasn’t experienced “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” they wouldn’t get why it was the theme* for my birthday.

One thing Libraries do for our patrons is offer materials and experiences that grant everyone entry into cultural conversations. I think mostly of school-aged kids and the necessity of being “in the know” about popular culture, but it applies to everyone.

If your friend group is constantly discussing the “Spiderman” movies, but you haven’t seen any of them, you can’t truly participate in that cultural conversation. Luckily, the Library can help you get caught up pretty easily. We may not own every Spiderman movie (right now, we only have the Andrew Garfield ones), but through our inter-library loan service (that costs $3), we have access to other library collections that do.

The Library also helps me keep up with my kids’ cultural references. I find myself looking up various terms they use, reading articles about the storyline and chapters in Fortnite, and trying to find all the Minecraft books possible just to keep up.

We don’t have the space or budget to collect every popular book, movie, or video game, but if you feel like you’re missing out on part of our cultural conversation, let us know and we’ll see what we can do to help.

*In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” it’s revealed that the answer to “the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” is 42.